I am sure you guys are familiar with our rights to freedom of speech. This right is enshrined in almost every written/unwritten constitution in the world today which is recognised internationally as a fundamental human rights and appeared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also article 19 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Right. However, we know that no rights can be absolute. Therefore Freedom of speech must be subjected to reasonable restriction imposed by federal law in the interest of the security of the country, friendly relations with other countries, public order, or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to any offence.
My next point is that, since Freedom of Speech is closely related to one's Right to information and that depriving one's freedom of speech may violate another man's right to information. This bring about the point that I would like to discuss; whether freedom of speech in the form of information should be restricted? Do you think that the people should be stopped from accessing information that may be true or otherwise? This applies to various aspect, it may be political or it can be in the form of entertainment eg. movies and music.
...of course, that is the freedom of expression...However, if in case the information is to be judged as a hate crime such as one case where a man was denied publishing a book that claims the holocaust as false...
...otherwise, if such information is appropriate, an individual should be able to access it...
...another exception is based on the individual who posesses the information and weather that individual is willing to express it or not...
...the last of the exceptions are the special government policies which allows the government to override an individual's rights such as the US patriot act and Canada's war measure's act...
...if the posessor of the information or document is being censored for what is considered an unreasonable cause, that individual may take this to court and submit the case as a violation of thatindividual's personal freedom of expression...
good times taking a civil rights course 3 years ago. i only got a b- lol
anyway. it is our right as the public to take any and all information and make our own informed decission on whatever the matter may be. this can not be done if freedom of speech to the general public is denied.
well yeah, but my whole point is that it is irresponsible for anybody to look at an issue from one side. for instance, voting democratic or republican or otherwise. if you only get your information from one side of the campaign, then you are not making an informed decission on who you are voting for. that is not why we have voted officials.
Seifer, it is great to know that you took civil rights course
Btw flare star, i'm not here to ask question but to discuss. haha so don't worry about whether you answered my question or not and you showed great wisdom, more so at your age.
you raised some really interesting example like where a man was denied publishing holocaust books. You see, in regards to true/false information, i am of the opinion that no one should be denied from expressing information even though it might be false. I think we should let the people access it so that they can judge for themselves the authenticity of the information.
Yes, there are many 'clawback' clauses - Acts that take away those rights.
There are actually some government that denied certain person from blogging or conducting public lecture on certain issues. the reason is that the information that they are passing might be false and lead to civil unrest. I'm wondering whether that is saying that we normal people are stupid and can't judge right from wrong?
i feel the general public isnt so much stupid, but emotional. emotional as opposed to civil.give the change, there are a lot of people in any culture or area of the world where if there was a riot going on, they would join knowing that there would be no specifc punishment for them, or at least the chances are pretty slim. like looting stores and the such. With so many followers in the coulntry we have to make sure the leaders have the facts right. so when anyone on the internet can write a blog about something controvertial, it gives them more power than a lot of places around the world would like.
All that being said, i dont know what id do if i had the power to stop certain rights for some to maintain order in a country. i really dont know. i dont care if someone says something about me (the pretend leader in this case, which is usually the biggest problem in other countrys, people speaking out about their leaders shortcomings) but talking about say... certain country affiliations we may have or something could lead to rough economic times for the imaginary world i just created. its walking a thin line.
Seifer, it is great to know that you took civil rights course
Btw flare star, i'm not here to ask question but to discuss. haha so don't worry about whether you answered my question or not and you showed great wisdom, more so at your age.
you raised some really interesting example like where a man was denied publishing holocaust books. You see, in regards to true/false information, i am of the opinion that no one should be denied from expressing information even though it might be false. I think we should let the people access it so that they can judge for themselves the authenticity of the information.
Yes, there are many 'clawback' clauses - Acts that take away those rights.
There are actually some government that denied certain person from blogging or conducting public lecture on certain issues. the reason is that the information that they are passing might be false and lead to civil unrest. I'm wondering whether that is saying that we normal people are stupid and can't judge right from wrong?
...kinda why I'm allowed in here even thought the age requirement is 16...
...anyways, if this should be discussed, then I take the side who chooses to allow absolute freedom of expression...
...the problem with the current system is that there is no absolute set standard depicting what content is not allowed...this causes too much hassle as people begin finding what they believe is appropriate to be censored and scrutinized by another group...
...the solution is simple, if such documents that are ment to be offensive is viewed, the viewer is expected to demonstrate enough intelligence to recognize such a document as absolute rubbish...
...anyways, if this should be discussed, then I take the side who chooses to allow absolute freedom of expression...
...the problem with the current system is that there is no absolute set standard depicting what content is not allowed...
you can see the problem there right. give what you would choose, there should be nothing that isnt allowed. free reign as it were. i cant help but feel that this would be a right that a small amount of perople would take advantage of and seriously mess things up. and once its set in stone, you cant do anything to those that are taking advantage of the system. the way it is now at least we are all aware of the fact that things are rubbish and it keeps us on the look out. the other system you describe would have everyone acting niave thinking everything is real and being dumb.
my point, all systems have flaws and we just have to choose the lesser of two evil. that choice though, i do not know.
seifer, you highlighted the potential dangers if rights to expression/speech especially where society can be emotional. It is true because we do see street demonstration turn ugly. So it's like trying to balance individual rights and the welfare of society.
But flarestar, i think it is great that ppl are bombarded with information which may be true or false. this way, they can see the whole picture and know the good, bad and ugly of each parties. This will lead to better excercise of voting rights.
It is refreshing to see so many favor or at least, tilted to freedom of speech
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